Today's Features

The PE Platform Wars: Five Accounting Firms Battle for Market Share

After hundreds of deals, the data show a gravitational pull toward a handful of buyers now driving the profession’s future.

CPA Trendlines PE Deal Tracker: Mega-aggregators are dominating the money flow as the race tightens between Sorren, Citrin Cooperman, Crete Professionals, Platform Accounting, and Ascend. Coming up fast: Doeren Mayhew.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The frantic pace of deal-making in March has officially transitioned the accounting industry from a “consolidation phase” into a “platform war.”

MORE in Private Equity | Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms

As the first quarter concludes, the narrative is no longer just about who is buying whom, but about which investment philosophy—and which technology stack—will dominate the next decade.

The conventional narrative about private equity in accounting says capital is flooding in, the profession is democratizing, and every CPA firm in America can access institutional money for the first time. But the cold, hard data tells a different story.

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Three Questions to Ask Clients about Goodwill

portrait of Randy Fox
Fox
Randy A. Fox, CFP, AEP is the founder of Two Hawks Consulting LLC. He is a nationally known wealth strategist, philanthropic estate planner, educator and speaker.

Help manage their exit readiness.

By Randy A. Fox, CFP, AEP 
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

For many of your clients who are successful entrepreneurs, their business represents 80 percent to 90 percent of the value of their estate.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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While it seems like a large number on paper, it’s often illiquid, preventing the owner from enjoying the rewards of all their hard work. The lack of liquidity can also make owners reluctant to do the right kind of planning to maximize their “walk away” money post-sale.

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Three Ways to Talk to Audit Clients

Prospects have to find you easily.

By Jody Grunden
Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud

With our 401(k) audit service, the bulk of our clients find us online and come to us through our website. We also get referrals from investment advisors and third-party administrators.

MORE by Jody Grunden
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No matter how a prospect finds us, there are three ways that they typically reach out to us:
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Geof Brown: Rethink Everything | Gear Up for Growth

Illinois CPA Society CEO lays out the three big challenges.

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“What got you to this point is not going to be what gets your firm to its next major milestone,” says Geoffrey Brown, president and CEO of the Illinois CPA Society.

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth | MORE CPA Trendlines streaming videos and podcasts here

“Be flexible. Be nimble,” he tells Jean Caragher in this episode of Gear Up for Growth. “Surround yourself with the right people and take advantage of opportunities that help you lead into the future.”  READ MORE →

Bissett Bullet: Why Do You Do What You Do?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “In accounting, our impact on businesses, lives and futures is substantial. We need to pull people into that knowledge to attract them.”

By Martin Bissett

If I were to visit your website today, how many stories would I find about how you helped businesses? Really? That many? That’s what I thought. We need to communicate the “why” of what we do far more than the “what” of what we do.

Today’s To-Do:

Take a look at your website today. How many client stories can be found on it? For many firms this is zero. Look to improve that by one, today.

See more Bissett Bullets here

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